DEET Disaster Cleanup?

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raven
Posts: 1531
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm

Re: DEET Disaster Cleanup?

Post by raven » August 22nd, 2021, 10:31 pm

DEET is an inconveniently good solvent.

I think the original study that claimed insect repellent equivalence is at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270489. That study was done in SE Asia and tested picaridin at 20% against DEET at 20% -- only against mosquitos. More powerful formulations were ignored, and 10% picaridin did not do as well.

I've run into mosquitos that were painfully undeterred by 95% DEET, so I'm a bit leery about a 20% solution being adequate under some conditions. The US military used 95% DEET liquid during Vietnam; now they seem to be using a 30% DEET lotion. The military does more testing than we can readily do ourselves, so finding and trying some 30% DEET military-spec lotion seems to be a reasonable way to go.

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retired jerry
Posts: 14395
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm

Re: DEET Disaster Cleanup?

Post by retired jerry » August 23rd, 2021, 5:24 am

yeah, 30% DEET is supposed to be more effective than anything else. Maybe higher concentrations a little more effective but causes more problems.

edit: maybe DEET and picaridin are equally effective

I wear long sleeve shirt and pants of tight weave nylon. High collar. Sometimes I'll put a little DEET on my wrists and back of hands, neck, sides of face.

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